I started.

“He did, did he? He specifically recommended that definite costume?”

“Yes.”

“Ha!”

“Eh?”

“Nothing. Just ‘Ha!’”

And I’ll tell you why I said “Ha!” Here was Jeeves making heavy weather about me wearing a perfectly ordinary white mess jacket, a garment not only tout ce qu’il y a de chic, but absolutely de rigueur, and in the same breath, as you might say, inciting Gussie Fink-Nottle to be a blot on the London scene in scarlet tights. Ironical, what? One looks askance at this sort of in-and-out running.

“What has he got against Pierrots?”

“I don’t think he objects to Pierrots as Pierrots. But in my case he thought a Pierrot wouldn’t be adequate.”

“I don’t follow that.”